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 kevin.hussain24
  • Posts: 18
  • Joined: Oct 04, 2019
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#71980
hello,
Why is answer A wrong?

Thank you
 James Finch
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 943
  • Joined: Sep 06, 2017
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#71987
Hi Kevin,

It's ultimately irrelevant to the stimulus's argument whether diatoms are the same or different now vs the last ice age; all that matters is whether diatoms would have absorbed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or not. As diatoms are algae and algae are plants, this is a safe assumption to make. This makes (A) ultimately irrelevant to the stimulus.

Contrast this with the correct answer choice, (D): if (D) is true, then there was likely no actual increase in the number of diatoms, which completely destroys the More Ferrous :arrow: More Diatoms :arrow: Less CO2 causal chain the stimulus is proposing, as there wouldn't actually be more diatoms, and the mystery of why there is so much ferrous material and so little CO2 in the bubbles would remain.

Hope this clears things up!
 kevin.hussain24
  • Posts: 18
  • Joined: Oct 04, 2019
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#72603
Thank you James
 LSAT student
  • Posts: 32
  • Joined: Aug 23, 2020
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#93603
This seemed like an unfair question because to pick (D) you'd need to understand something about diatoms and that they leave behind shells. This answer didn't make sense to me and so I just quickly eliminated it...
Please help!
 Adam Tyson
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
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#93762
That answer doesn't require you to know anything about diatoms and their shells, because the answer provides that information for you. The way the answer is worded - "the shells that diatoms leave when they die" - tells you that, in fact, dead diatoms (whatever they are) leave shells behind. We are told in the question stem to accept the answers as true, so all we need to do is accept that dead diatoms leave shells, and if there aren't more shells during that period then there probably aren't more dead diatoms, and thus probably not a lot more diatoms in general (because if you get a population boom of any living thing it would be reasonable to expect a corresponding increase in the number of those things dying over time).

A good prephrase would have been "something that indicates there may not have been an increase in stuff like diatoms." Answer D is the only one that comes close to that.

It's annoying, but it's fair!
 LSAT student
  • Posts: 32
  • Joined: Aug 23, 2020
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#93792
Thank you for clarifying!
Adam Tyson wrote: Mon Feb 14, 2022 5:09 pm That answer doesn't require you to know anything about diatoms and their shells, because the answer provides that information for you. The way the answer is worded - "the shells that diatoms leave when they die" - tells you that, in fact, dead diatoms (whatever they are) leave shells behind. We are told in the question stem to accept the answers as true, so all we need to do is accept that dead diatoms leave shells, and if there aren't more shells during that period then there probably aren't more dead diatoms, and thus probably not a lot more diatoms in general (because if you get a population boom of any living thing it would be reasonable to expect a corresponding increase in the number of those things dying over time).

A good prephrase would have been "something that indicates there may not have been an increase in stuff like diatoms." Answer D is the only one that comes close to that.

It's annoying, but it's fair!

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